Vanda in action!

After tens of hours spent on flying our octocopter (we call it Vanda) on a flight simulator and a couple of hours of real flying we traveled to Spain for the first data collection. Very busy, intense and stressful fieldwork, at least for me as a rookie RC pilot. Fortunately after several flights my leg shake (stress!!) decreased and I finally started to really enjoy flying :-) 

Maybe I will even start to think about building a smaller version of Vanda on my own...

Work can be really fun!!!

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Busy days

Busy days...
My stay in Poland was simply great :-) Even if I did not manage to do all the things I planned and I got a cold, I really needed to spend some time with my family. Good to see my parents getting along together, spend time with the grandparents...
Bergen greeted me with truly wet and grey weather so I am looking forward to move to a little bit less rainy place even more!

drTBBE arrived to Viborg today and his Danish adventure is about to start :-)
I spend long hours on processing data, programming, trying to pack a little bit in between and listening to Adele...




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Long weekend

About 6 hours after we came back from Utah I picked up Duarte at the airport :-)
This incredible Portuguese guy lives now in Finland so we could exchange our observations about living in Scandinavia!
Duarte's visit was not only fun and relaxing but also a great cure for the jetlag: after about 48 hours almost without sleeping we talked and drunk until the morning of Saturday :-)

Great time!!! Thanks Duarte!!!

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lazy Sunday

Bergen is so beautiful when it is sunny...
Lazy Sunday spent on reading The Hobbit and a walk around Gamlehaugen :-)

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Do you already have the XBox ?

Another lazy Saturday :-) After yesterday's Flammkuchen dinner with quite some amount of alcohol writing isn't easy. So I will better stop now :-)






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the best investment for 100NOK

The thaw has arrived and everything is covered with melting ice and water.
The best investment of 100NOK:

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buying cross-country beginner's ski pack in Norway

The big plan for today was to try cross-country skiing for the first time in our life.
Unfortunately we did not make it... and here is the story:

Introduction
There are big chains of sport shops in the Bergen area. After short market check (strangely, the choice of skis is pretty limited here) we decided to go for a standard beginner's kit from one of the sport shops.

Chapter 1.
Thursday afternoon, Shop A - no boots in my size (36). We are sent us to Shop B (20km far away) with a promise that my boots should be there

Chapter 2.
Thursday evening, Shop B. My boots are available (from the baby's shoes department), but unfortunately they do not have skis in our size. We buy the boots and 'reserve' the right skis in Shop C (city centre) to be picked up on Saturday.

Chapter 3.
Saturday morning, Shop C. We are there with the right boots, the skis are there waiting for us but unfortunately  they run out of bindings fitting our set. (AAA!!!%^!!!$^$ Wrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!) The bindings are available in Shop D (15km far away + 15minutes queuing to park the car!).

Chapter 4.
Saturday afternoon, Shop D. We are there with the right shoes, with the right skis and the bindings are there. We have them mounted and ask about the right ski poles. Unfortunately they do not have the right ones for me... AAAA!!!!! Wrrrrr!!%%$!!!!

Epilogue
The missing ski poles for me do not matter anymore because it is already 2p.m. and it will get dark very soon...

From the author:
Most of the sport shops in Bergen lack the ski bindings because of the delivery problems. The same is valid for the wood (for wood stoves). My guess is that the bindings and the wood are on their way here in one truck that is stuck somewhere on the icy roads right in front of the truck that brings salt (also difficult to buy) to our lovely city!



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lazy... very lazy...

It is so difficult to go back to the 'working mode' again after all the after-Christmass laziness...
But fortunately we have weekend and some time to relax again!!!

If you want laugh a bit, have a look at the video below - I was almost crying :-D
























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All the best in 2011!!!

After very busy Christmas period we had a couple of lazy, slow and peaceful days back in Bergen :-)
Exactly what I needed: some time just for myself and TBdrBE :-) Books, movies, walks, no plans, no meetings or deadlines :-D
Batteries are charged again!!!

Almost dancing at the New Year's Eve:

My favourite Christmas gift already installed in our kitchen window :-)

All the best in 2011!!!

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Chaos part 2

I should be somewhere on the way from Warszawa to my parent's place right now but here I am, sitting at home (in Bergen) and writing...


I got up at 4am to catch a bus to the airport and be on time for the flight to Frankfurt at 6:45. No problem with check-in this time, but around the boarding time they announced that the flight would be delayed and if we take-off at all, it would at 11:12... Right..waiting again... at 9:30 another announcement: The Frankurft airport is closed !!!!


I believe that I beat my personal speed record when running to pick up a number at the ticket counter :-) After half an hour (business class served first) I got the new ticket :-) 


Let's see of I can fly through Copenhagen tomorrow morning....






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Chaos

I should be somewhere on the way from Amsterdam to Warsaw right now but here I am, sitting at home (in Bergen) and writing...

Schipol was closed yesterday due to heavy snowfals but most of the planes scheduled for  today in the morning took off without any problems. I was quite optimistic...

I got suspicious already around noon when I could not check-in online but the vague message - please contact KLM service desk at the airport - did not say too much...

On the way to the airport I got stuck in a traffic jam for around 30 minutes. Apparently most of the people in Bergen still do not have Xmas gifts and they all decided to go shopping to the Lagunen shopping centre placed next to the main road to the airport.

And when I finally reached the airport I was told that Schipol is not accepting any transfer passengers so I need to pick-up a number and wait to get a new ticket... |Right... I picked up a number (207) at 15:10 while number 95 was being processed. The photo below was taken at 16:30.

 I was finally able to leave the airport with a new ticket at 18:50!!!

Almost 4 hours of waiting (only people from the flight to Amsterdam were served at that time)!!!! Wrrrr!!!

Fortunately there were some nice and talkative people around with a good sense of humour :-)  

Let's see of I can fly through Frankfurt tomorrow morning....

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2nd snow

It started to snow (second snow this winter) just when I was coming back from the airport.

TBBE is already in Poland, getting ready for the final defence :-) and I am flying there in 2 days.

This is how I feel about that:

The big plan is to spend a lot of time with my family and celebrate the 3 new symbols (Dr.) in front of the 'TBBE'. I guess it has been a long time since I was last so happy about flying home...

Coming back to the snow: I hope it will stay like that! Since there is only a couple of centimetres of the white powder it is still possible to walk (forget about people de-snowing side walks next to their houses!)  and the city looks pretty nice :-)
I guess I start to feel the Christmas spirit already...

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a cold, wood & fire

TBBE came back just in time to practice a bit before he will become a doctor. He was playing a nurse (a very good and patient nurse) while I had a very bad cold ;-)

In the meanwhile we had another weather record in Bergen - a cold record. November 2010 is the coldest since 1919!!! Lucky us to be here in that grateful moment!!! Wow! ;-)
Anyway, probably because of the low temperatures (-5C to -10C) we were driving around the city yesterday trying to find a shop that would have any wood in store. Mission completed after almost 2 hours.

And I have almost burnt our house with that wood today.... I did nothing unusual, just added an extra piece of wood to the wood-stove to warm up our flat faster and suddenly there was a fire within the tube connecting the wood-stove with the chimney... Large fire, plenty of smoke outside - our adrenalin level increased significantly...
Fortunately after applying some decent amount of water everything came back to normality. Well, almost everything, the wall about the wood-stove isn't white any more...


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Colours :-)

Suddenly it stopped raining and all the greyness disappeared :-)

Programming...

The picture below describes perfectly my last days: 

Pretty sad, isn't it? Things like: "rotations using quaternions" and "gradient dependent opacity attenuation" consumed most of my time and energy in the last weeks.
Sometimes I ask myself: why on Earth I am doing that? Who cares? I guess these are the most frequently asked questions among the PhD students... but has anyone found the answer yet?

TBBE has gone to our favourite 'southern' country for the next 3 weeks to pass the final exams before the defence of his PhD. Our flat is incredibly empty now and even the weather forecast looks more horrible than usually...
Ehhh, it might be the right time to dig out my Energy Lamp and see if it works at all  :-)



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First day of winter!

Winter arrived!!!

and it looks like I get the first winter cold in this season :-(

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Sunshine again :-)

Another lovely day at the seaside :-)
TBBE was jumping on slippery rocks, climbing even more slippery rocks and doing many weird things to find and reach the best place for fishing. Result = 4 lures lost, 6 fishes caught.
I immediately found a very comfortable position to lay on the shore and enjoy this lazy afternoon...

Vikings were also there....

...followed by a military boat...

Fortunately Autumn has more colours than grey !!!

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Autumn is here

After a couple of veeeeery grey, dark and wet days (for me also full of programming):

it finally stopped raining today!!! :-)

Even if the weather forecast was not too optimistic, we drove to Øygarden (archipelago West from Bergen) to have a walk and to fish a bit :-)

I must say I really enjoy the Norwegian nature, especially when it is not raining.. :-)

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a colourful weekend :-)

A couple of photos from the weekend with Karine and Wim. BTW, if you hear stories about Wim almost catching this 1 meter long fish... believe it or not... :-)

The fact is that he lost 2 lures in about 30 minutes of fishing :-)

Modern art in Bergen:

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very busy...

The last days were very fun and busy with Karine and Wim being here :-)
It was excellent to spend some time with them and I only hope that they have enjoyed it as much as I have!!!

The next days will be even more busy: a conference and later sightseeing Paris in full sunshine with TBBE and Lorenzo!!! :-)